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SPEECH 




WILLIAM H. SEWARD, 



IMMEDIATE ADMISSION OE KANSAS INTO THE UNION 



/ 



S^^NATE OF THE UNITED STATES, APRIL 9, 1856. 



Mr. Peesidext : To obtain empire is easy and 
ccmmon ; to govern it well is oifficult and rare in- 
deed. I saUite the Congress ot the United States in 
the exercise of its most important function, that 
of extending the Federal Constitution over added 
domains, and I salute especially the Senate in the 
most august of all its manifold characters, itself 
a Congress of thirty-one free, equal, sovereign 
States, assembled to decide whether the majestic 
and fraternal circle shall be opened to receive 
yet another free, equal, and sovereign State. 

The Constitution presciibes only two qualifica- 
tions for new States, namel}- — a substantial civil 
communiiy, and a republican Government. Kan- 
sas has both of these. 

The circumstances of Kansas, and her relations 
towards the Union, are peculiar, anomalous, and 
deeply interesting. The United States acquired 
the province of Louisiana, (which included the 
present Territory of Kansas,) from France, in 
1803, by a treaty, in which they agreed that its 
inhabitants should be incorporated into the Fed- 
eral Union, and admitted as soon as possible, ac- 
cording to the principles of the Constitution, to 
the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and 
immunities, of citizens of the United States. 
^^evertheless, Kansas was in 1820 assigned as a 
home for an indefinite period to several savage 
Indian tribes, and closed against immigration and 
all ether than aboriginal civilization, but not 
witliout a contemporaneous pledge to the Ameri- 
can people and to mankind, that neither Slavery 
nor involuntary servitude should be tolerated 
therein forever. In 1854, Congress directed a remo- 
val of the Indian tribes, and organized and opened 
Kansas to civilization, but by the same act re- 
scinded the pledge of perpetual dedication to 
Freedom, and substituted for it anotlier, which de- 
clared that the [future] people of Kansas should 
be left perfectly free to establish or to exclude 
Slavery, as they should decide through the action 
of a republican Government which Congress 



modeled and authorized them to establish, tinder 
the protection of the United States. Notwitb- 
standing this latter pledge, when the newly ass-o- 
ciated people of Kansas, in 1855, were proceed- 
ing with the machinery of popular elections, in the 
manner prescribed by Congress, to choose legisla- 
tive bodies for the purpose of organizing that 
republican Government, armed bands of invaders 
from the State of Missouri entered the Territory, 
seized the polls, overpowered or drove away the 
inhabitants, usurped the elective franchise, de- 
posited false and spurious ballots without regard 
to regularity of qualification or of numbers, pro- 
cured official certiflcates of the result by fraud 
and force, and thus created and constituted legis- 
lative bodies to act for and in the name of the 
people of the Territory. These legislative bodies 
afterward assembled, assumed to be a legitimate 
Legislature, set forth a code of municipal laws, 
created public offices and filled them with offij^ers 
appointed for considerable periods by themselves, 
and thus established a complete and effective 
foreign tyranny over the people of the Territory. 
These high-hauded transactions were consumma- 
ted with the expressed purpose of establishing 
African Slavery as a permanent institution within 
the Territory by force, in violation of the natural 
rights of the people solemnly guarantied to them 
by the Congress of the United States. The Pres- 
ident of the United States has been an accessory 
to these political transactions, with full complicity 
in regard to the purpose for which they were 
committed. He has adopted the usurpation, and 
made it his own, and he is now maintaining it 
with the military arm of the Republic. Thus Kan- 
sas has been revolutionized, and she now lies sub- 
jugated and prostrate at the foot of the President 
of the United States, while he, through the agency 
of a foreign tyranny established within her bor- 
ders, is forcibly introducing and establishing 
Slavery there, in contempt and detance of the 
organic law. These extraordinary transactioaa- 



.2 6-/3 



have been attended by civil commotions, in 
which property, life, and liberty, have been ex- 
pos-ed to violence, and these commotions still con- 
tinue to threaten not only the Territory itself, but 
also the adjacent States, with the calamities and 
disasters of civil war. 

. I am fully aware of the gravity of the charges 
against the President of the United States which 
this statement of the condition and relations of 
Kansas i.oports. I shall proceed, without fear 
and without reserve, to make them good. The 
maxim, that a sacred veil must be drawn over 
the beginning of all Governments, does not hold 
under our system. I shall first call the accuser 
into the presence of the Senate — then examine 
the defences which the President has made — and, 
last, submit the evid&nces by which he is con- 
victed. 

The people of Kansas know whether these 
charges are true or false. They have adopted 
them, and, on the ground of the high political 
necessity which the wrongs they have endured, 
ajid are yet enduring, and the dangers through 
which they have already passed, and the perils to 
which they areyet exposed, have created, they have 
provisionally orj;anized themselves as a State, and 
that State is nowhere, by its two chosen Senators 
.ind one Representative, standing outside at the 
doora of Congress, applying to be admitted into 
the Union, as a means of relief indispensable lor 
the purposes of peace, freedom, and safety. This 
new State is tlie President's responsible accuser. 

The President of the United States, without 
waiting for the appearance of his aiccuser at the 
capital, anticipated the accusations, and submitted 
his defences against them to Congress. The tirs 
one of these defences was contained in bis annual 
message, which was communicated to Congress 
on the 30th of December, 1855. I examine it. 
You shall see at once that the President's mind 
was oppressed — was full of something, too large 
and burdensome to be concealed, and yet too 
critical to be told. 

Mark, if you please, the state of the case at 
tiiat time. So early as August, 1855, the peo- 
ple of Kansas had denounced the Legislature. 
They had at voluntary elections chosen Mr. A. H. 
Reeder to represent them in the prese)it Congress, 
iastead of J. W. Whitfield, who held a certificate 
of election under the autherity of the Legislature. 
They had also, on the 23d day of October, 1855, 
by similar voluntary elections, constituted at 
Topeka an organic Convention, which framed a 
Constitution tor the projected State. They had 
also, on the 15th of December, 1855, at similar 
voluntary elections, adopted that Constitution, 
and its tenor was fully known. It provided for 
elections to be held throughout the new State on 
the 15th of January, 1856, to fill the offices 
created by it, and it also required the Executive 
and Legislative officers, thus to be chosen, to 
assemble at Topeka on the 4th day of Jlarch, 
1»5G, to inaugurate the new State provisionally, 
and to take the necessary means for the appoint- 
ment of Senators, v/ho, together with a Repre- 
featative already chosen, should submit the Con- 
stitution to Congress at an early day, and 
apply for the admission of the State of Kan- 



sas into the Union. All these proceediflfs had 
been basee^ on the grounds that the Territorial 
authorities of Kansas had been established by 
armed foreign usurpation, and were ncverthelesa 
sustained by the President of the United States. 
A constitutional obligation required the President 
"to give to Congress,'' in his annual message, 
" information of the state of the Union." Here 
is all "the information" which the President 
gave to Congress concerning the events in Kansas, 
and its relations to the Union : 

" In the Territory of Kansas there have been 
' acts prejudicial to good order, but as yet none 
' have occurred under circumstances to justify 
' the interposition of the Federal Executive. 
' That could only be in case of obstruction to 
' Federal law, or of organized resistance to Tcrri- 
' torial law, assuming the character of insurrec- 
' tion, which, if it should occur, it would be my 
' duty promptly to overcome and suppress. I 
' cherish the hope, however, that the occurrence 
' of any such untoward event will be prevented 
' by the sound sense of the people of the Terri- 
' toTy, who, by its organic law, possessing the 
' right to determine their own domestic institu- 
' tions, arc entitled, while deporting themselves 
' peacefully, to the free exercise of that right, and 
' must be protected in the enjoyment of it, with- 
' out interference on the part of the citizens of 
' any of the States." 

This information implies, that no invasion, 
usurpation, or tyranny, has been committed 
within the Territory by strangers ; and that the 
provisional State organization now going forward 
is not only unnecessary, bat also prejudicial to 
good order, and insurrectionary. It menaces the 
people of Kansas with a threat, that the Presi- 
dent, will "overcome and suppress" them. It. 
mocks them with a promise, that, if they shall 
hereafter deport themselves properly, under the 
control hi authoritius by which they have been 
disfranchised, in determining institutions which 
have been already forcibly determined for thera 
by foreign invasion, that then they "must be pro- 
tected against interference by citizens of any of 
the States." 

The President, however, not content with a 
statement so obscnre and unfair, devotes a third 
part of the annual message to argumentative 
j speculations bearing on the character of hh 
accuser. Each State has two and no more 
Senators in the Senate of the United States. 
In determining the apportionment of Represent- 
atives in the House of Representatives, and in the 
electoral colleges among the States, three-fiftha 
of all the slaves in any State are enumerated. 
The slaveholding or non-slavebolding character 
of a State is determined, not at the time of its 
admission into the Unicm' as a State, but at thaS 
earlier period of its political life in which, being 
called a Territon', it is politically dependent oa 
the United States, or on some foreign sovereign. 
Slavery is tolerated in some of the States^ and 
forbidden in others. Affecting the industrial and 
economical systems of the several States, aa 
Slavery and Freedom do, this diversity of prac- 
tice concerning them early worked out a corres- 
ponding difference of conditions, interests, aE3<S 



ambitions, among the Slates, and divided and 
arrayed them into two classes. The balance of 
political power between these two classes in the 
Federal system is sensibly affected by the acces- 
sion of any new State to either of them. Each 
State therefore watches jealously the settlement, 
growth, and inchoate slaveholdingand non-slavc- 
holding characters of Territories, which may ulti- 
mately come into the Union-as States. It has re- 
sulted from these circumstances, that Slavery, in 
relations purely political and absolutely Federal, 
is an element which enters with more or less ac- 
tivity into many national questions of finance, of 
revenue, of expenditure, of protection, of free 
trade, of patronage, of peace, of war, of annexa- 
tion, of defence, and of conquest, and modifies 
opinions concerning constructions of the Constitu- 
tion, and the distribution of powers betv^eeu the 
Union and the several States by which it is consti- 
tuted. Slavery, under these political and Federal 
aspects alone, enters into the transactions in Kan- 
sas, with which the President and Congress are 
concerned. Nevertheless, he disingenuously al- 
ludes to those transactions in his defence, as if 
they were identified with that moral discussion 
of Slavery which he regards as odious and alarm- 
ing, and without any other claim to consideration. 
Thus he alludes to the question before ns as 
belonging to a " political agitation " " concern- 
' ing a matter which consists to a great extent of 
' exaggeration of inevitable evils, or over-zeal in 
' social improvement, or mere imagination of 
' grievance, having but a remote connection with 
' any of the constitutional functions of the Fed- 
' eral Government, and menacing the stjibility of 
' the Constitution and the integrity of the 
' Union." 

In like manner the President assails and stig- 
matizes those who defend and maintain the 
cause of Kansa-, as "men of narrow views .-md 
' sectional purposes," " engaged in those wild and 

* chimerical schemes of social change which are 
' generated one after another in the unstable minds 
' of visionary sophists and interested agitators" — 
' " mad men, raising the storm of frenzy and fac- 
' tion," " sectional agitators," "enemies of the Cou- 

* stitution, who have surrendered themselves so 
' far to a fanatical devotion to the supposed inter- 
' ests of the relativel}' few Africans in the United 

* States, as totally to abandon and disregard the 
' interests of the twenty- five millions of Americans, 

and trample under foot the injunctions of moral 
' and constitutional obligation, and to engage in 
' plans of vindictive hostility against those who 
' are associated with them in the enjoyment of the 
' common heritage of our free institutions." Sir, 
the President's defence on this occasion, if not 
a matter simply personal, is at least one of tem- 
porary and ephemeral importance. Possibly, all 
the advantages he will gain by transferring to his 
accuser a portion of the i)opular prejudice against 
Abolition and Abolitionists, can be spared to him. 
It would be wise, however, for those whose inter- 
ests are inseparable from Slavery, to reflect that 
Abolition will gain an equivalent benefit from the 
identification of the President's defence with their 
cherished institution. Abolition is a slow but 
irrepressible uprising of principles of natural jus- 



tice and humanity, obnoxious to prejudice, be- 
cause they conflict inconveniently with existing 
material, social, and political interests. It belonge 
to others than statesmen, charged with the care of 
present interests, to conduct the social reformation 
of mankind in its broadest bearings. I leave to 
Abolitionists their own work of self-vindication. 
I may, however, remind slaveholders that there is 
a time when oppression and persecution cease to 
be effectual against such movements ; and then 
the odium they have before unjustly incurred be- 
comes an element of strength and power. Chris- 
tianity, blindly maligned during three centuries, 
by Pra'tors, Governors, Senates, Councils, and Em- 
perors, towered above its enemies in a fourth ; and 
even the cross on which its Founder had expired, 
and which therefore was the emblem of its shame, 
became the sign under which it Avont forth ever- 
more thereafter, conquering and to conquer. Abo- 
lition is yet only in its first century. 

The President raises in his defence a false issue, 
and elaborates an irrelevant argument to prove 
that Congress has no right or power, nor has 
any sister State any right or power, to interfere 
within a slave State, by legislation or force, to 
abolish Slavery therein— as if you, or I, or any 
other responsible man, ever maintained the con- 
trary. 

The President distorts the Constitution from 
its simple text, so as to make it expressly and di- 
rectly defend, protect, and guaranty African 
Slavery. Thus he alleges that " the Govcrnmen<, ' 
which resulted from tlie Revolution was a "Fed- 
eral Republic of the free white men of the Colo- 
nies," whereas, on the contrary, the Declaration of 
Independence asserts the political equality of all 
men, and even the Constitution itself carefully 
avoids any political recognition not merely of 
Slavery, but of the diversity of races. The Pres- 
ident represents the Fathers as having contem- 
plated and provided for a permanent increase of 
the number of slaves in some of the States, and 
therefore forbidden Congress to touch Slavery in 
the way of attack or offence, and as having there- 
fore also placed it under the general safeguard 
of the Constitution; whereas the F'athers, by au- 
thorizing Congress to abolish the African slave 
trade after 1808, as a means of attack, inflicted 
on Slavery in the States a blow, of which the}' 
expected it to languish immediately, and ulti- 
mately to expire. 

The President closes his defence in the annual 
message with a deliberate assault, very incongru- 
ous in such a place, upon some of the Northern 
States. At the same time he abstains, with 
marked caution, from naming the accused States. 
They, however, receive a compliment at his hands, 
by way of giving keenness to his rebuke, which 
enables us to identify them. They are Northern 
States " which were conspicuous in founding the 
Republic." All of the original Northern States 
were conspicuous in that great transaction. All 
of them, therefore, are accused. The offence 
charged is, that they disregard their constitu- 
tional obligations, and although " conscious of 
' their inability to heal admitted and palpable so- 
' cial evils of their own confessedly within their 
'jurisdiction, they engage in an offensive, hope- 



' less, and illegal undertaking;, to reform the do- 
' mastic institutions of the Southern States, at the 
' peril of the very existence of the Constitution, 
' and of a.ll the countless benefits which it has 
' conferred." I challenge the President to the 
proof, in behalf of Massachusetts; although I 
have only the interest common to all Americans 
and to all men in her great fame. What one 
corporate or social evil is there, of which she is 
conscious, and conscious also of inability to heal 
it? Is it ignorance, prejudice, bigotry, vice, 
crime, public disorder, poverty, or disease, afflict- 
ing the minds or the bodies of her people? There 
she stands. Survey her universities, colleges, 
academies, observatories, primary schools, Sunday 
schools, penal codes, and penitentiaries. Descend 
into her quarries, walk over her fields and through 
her gardens, observe her manufactories of a 
thousand various fiibrics, watch her steamers as- 
cending every river and inlet on your own coast, 
a-nd her ships displaying their canvass on every sea ; 
follow her fishermen in their adventurous voyages 
from her own and adjacent bays to the icy ocean 
under either pole; and then return and enter her 
hospitals, which cure or relieve suffering humanity 
in every conslition and at every period of life, from 
the lying-in to the second childhood, and which 
not only restore sight to the blind, and hearing to 
the deaf, and speech to the dumb, but also bring 
back wandering reason to the insane, and teach 
even the idiot to think! Massachusetts, sir, is a 
model of States, worthy of all honor; and though 
she was most conspicuous of all the States in the 
establishment of republican institutions here, she 
is even more conspicuous still for the municipal 
wisdom with which she has made them con- 
tribute to the welfare of her people, and to the 
greatness of the-Re])ublic itself. 

In behalf of New York, for whom it is my right 
and duty to speak, I defy the Presidential accu- 
ser. Mark her tranquil magnanimity, which be- 
comes a State for whose delivery from tyranny 
Schuyler devised and labored, who received her 
political Constitution from Hamilton, her intel- 
lectual and physical development from Clinton, 
amd her lessons in humanity from Jay. As she 
waves her wand over the continent, trade forsakes 
the broad natural channels which conveyed it be- 
fore to the Delaware and Chesapeake bays and 
to the Gulfs of St. Lawrence and Mexico, and 
obedient to her command pours itself through 
her artificial channels into her own once obscure 
seaport. She stretches her wand again towards 
the ocean, and the commerce of all the continents 
concentrates itself at her feet; and with it, strong 
and full floods of immigration ride in, contribu- 
ting labor, capital, art, valor, and enterprise, to 
perfect and embellish our ever-widening empire. 

When, and on what occasion, has Massachu- 
setts or New York ofliciously and illegally intruded 
herself within the jurisdiction of sister States, to 
modify or reform their institutions? No, no, sir. 
Their faults have been quite different. They 
have conceded too often and too much for their 
own just dignity and influence in Federal Ad- 
ministration, to the querulous complaints of the 
States in whose behalf the President arraigns 
them. I thank the President for the insult 



which, though so deeply tinjust, was perhaps 
needful to arouse them to their duty in this great 
emergency. 

The President, in this connection, reviews the 
acquisitions of new domain, the organization of 
new Territories, and the admission of new States, 
and arrives at results which must be as agreeably 
surprising to the slave States, as they are as- 
tounding to the free States. He finds that the 
former have been altogether guiltless of political 
ambition, while he convicts the latter not only of 
unjust territorial aggrandizement, but also of 
false and fraudulent clamor against the slave 
States, to cover their own aggressions. Not- 
withstanding the President's elaborated miscon- 
ceptiims, these historical facts remain, namely — 
that no acquisition whatever has ever been made 
at the instance of the free States, and with a 
view to their aggrandizement: that Louisiana 
and Florida, incidentally acquired for general and 
important national objects, have already yielded 
to the slave States three States of their own 
class, while Texas was avowedly annexed as a 
means of security to Slavery, and one slave State 
lias been already admitted from that acquisition, 
afnd Congress has stipulated for the admission of 
four more : tliat by way of equivalent for the 
admission of California a free State, the slave 
States have obtained a virtual repeal of the Mexi- 
can law which forbade Slavery in New Mexico 
and Utah; and that, as a consequence of that ex- 
traordinary legislation. Congress has also re- 
scinded the prohibition of Slavery, Avhich, in 
1820, was extended overall of that part of Louis- 
iana, except Missouri, which lies north of 36° 
30'' of north latitude. Sir, the real crime of the 
Northern States is this : they are forty degrees 
too high on the arc of north latitude. 

I dismiss for the present the President's first 
defence against the accusation of the new State 
of Kansas. 

On the 24th of January, 1856, when no import- 
ant event had happened which was unknown at 
the date of the President's annual message, he 
submitted to Congress his second defence, in the 
form of a special message. In this paper, the 
President deplores, as the cause of all the troubles 
which have occurred in Kansas, delays of the or- 
ganization of ths Territory, which have been per- 
mitted by the Governor, Mr. Reeder. The organic 
law was passed by Congress on the 31st of May, 

1854, but on that day there was not one lawful 
elector, citizen, or inhabitant, within the Terri- 
tory, while the question, whether Slavery or uni- • 
versal Freedom should be established there, was 
devolved practically on the first Legislative 
bodies to be elected by the people who were to 
become thereafter the inhabitants of Kansas. 
The election for the first Legislative bodies was 
appointed by the Governor to be held on the 
30th of March, 1855 ; and the 2d day of July, 

1855, was designated for the organization of the 
Legislative Assembly. The only civilized commu- 
nity that v/as in contact with the new Territory 
was Missouri, a slaveholding State, at whose in- 
stance the prohibition of Slavery within the Ter- 
ritory had been abrogated, so that she might at- 
tempt to colonize it with slaves. Im migrants 



were invited not only from all parts of the United 
States, but also from all other parts of the world, 
with a pledge that the peo[)le of the new Territory 
should be left perfectly free to establish or pro- 
hibit Slavery. A special election, however, was 
held within the Territory on the 2nth day of No- 
vember, 1854, without any preliminarj^ censns of 
the inhabitants, for the purpose of choosing a 
Delegate who might sit without a right to vote 
in Congress, during the second session of the Thir- 
ty-third Congress, which was to begin on the first 
Monday of December, 1854, and to end on the third 
day of March, 1855. Mr. J. W. Whitfield was 
certified to be elected. There were vehement 
complaints of illegality in the election, but his 
title was nevertheless not contested, for the pal- 
pable reasons, that an investigation under the 
circumstances of the Territory, during so short a 
session of Congress, would be impossible, and that 
the question was of inconsiderable magnitude. 
Yet the President laments that the Governor 
neglected to order the first election for th.e Legis- 
lative bodies of the new Territory to be held 
simultiueonsly with that hurried Congressional 
election. He assigns his reasons : "Any question 
' appertaining to the qualifications of persons 
' voting as the people of the Territoiy would (in 
' that case, incidentally) have necessarily passed 
' under the supervision of Congress, (meaning the 
' House of Representatives,) and would have been 
' determined before conflicting passions had been 
' inflamed by time, and before an opportunity 
' would have been afforded for systematic interfer- 
' ence by the people of individual States." Could 
the President, in any explicit arrangement of 
words, more distinctly have confessed his disap- 
pointment in failing to secure a merely formal 
election of Legislative bodies within the Terri- 
tory, in fraud of the organic law, of the people of 
Kansas, and of the cause of natural justice and 
humanity ? 

The President then proceeds to launch severe 
denunciations against what he calls a propagand- 
ist attempt to colonize the Territory with oppo- 
nents of Slavery. The whole American Conti- 
nent has been undergoing a process of coloniza- 
tion, in many forms, throughout a period of three 
hundred and fifty years. The only common ele- 
ment of all those forms was propagandism. Were 
not the voyages of Columbus progagandist expe- 
ditions, under the auspices of the Pope of Rome? 
Was not the wide occupation of Spanish America 
a propagandism of the Catholic Church ? The 
settlement of Massachusetts by the Pilgrims ; of 
the New Netherlands by the Reformers of Holland; 
the later plantation of the Mohawk valley by the 
Palatines ; the establishment of Penns^dvania^by 
the Friends ; the mission of the Moravians at 
Bethlehem, in the same State ; the foundation of 
Maryland by Lord Baltimore and his colony of 
British Catholics ; the settlement of Jamestown 
by the Cavaliers and Churchmen of England ; that 
of South Carolina by the Huguenots : Were not all 
these propagandist colonizations ? Was not 
Texas settled by a colony of slaveholders, and 
California by companies of freemen ? Yet never 
before did any Prince, King, Emperor, or Presi- 
dent, denounce such coiouizatious. Does any 



law of nature or nations forbid them ? Does any 
public authority quarantine, on the ground of 
opinion, the ships which are continually pouring 
into the gates of New York whole religious so- 
cieties from Ireland, Wales, Germany, and Nor- 
way, with their pastors, and clerks, and choirs ? 

But the President charges that the propagand- 
ists entered Kansas with a design to " anticipate 
' and force the determination of the Slavery 
' question within the Territory," (in favor of Free- 
dom,) forgetting, nevertheless, that he has only 
just before deplored a failure of his own to anti- 
cipate and force the determination of that ques- 
tion in favor of Slavery, by a cotip-de-main, in 
advance even of their departure from their homes 
in the Atlantic States and in Euroi)e. He charges, 
moreover, that the propagandists designed to 
" prevent the free and natural action of the in- 
' habitants in the intended organization of the 
' Territory," when, in fact, they were pursuing the 
only free and natural course to organize it by 
immigrating and becoming permanent inhabit- 
ants, citizens, and electors, of Kansas. Not one 
unlawful or turbulent act has been hitherto 
charged against any one of the propagandists of 
Freedom. JIark, now, an extraordinary inconsist- 
ency of the President. On the 29th of June, 1854, 
only twenty-nine days after the opening of the 
Territory, and before one of these emigrants had 
reached Kansas, or even Missouri, a propagand- 
ist association, but not of emigrants, named the 
Platte County Self-Defensive Association, assem- 
bled at Weston, on the western border of Mis- 
souri, in the interest of Slavery ; and it published, 
through the organ of the President of the United 
States at that place, a resolution, that " when 
' called upon by any citizen of Kansas, its mem- 
' bers would hold themselves in readiness to 
' assist in removing any and all emigrants who 
' should go there under the aid of Northern Emi- 
' grant Societies." This association afterward 
often made good its atrocious threats, by violence 
against the property, peace, and lives, of unoffend- 
ing citizens of Kansas. But the President of the 
United States, so far from denouncing it, does not 
even note its existence. 

The majority of the Committee on Territories 
ingeniously elaborate the President's charge, and 
arraign Massachusetts, her Emigrant Aid Society, 
and her emigrants. What has Massachusetts 
done, worthy of censure? Before the Kansas or- 
ganic law was passed by Congress, Massachu- 
setts, on application, granted to some of her 
citizens, who were engaged in "taking up" new 
lands in Western regions, one of those common 
charters which are used by all associations, in- 
dustrial, moral, social, scientific, and religious, 
now-a-days, instead of copartnerships, for the 
more convenient transaction of their fiscal affairs. 
The actual capital is some $60,000. Neither the 
granting of the charter, nor any legislative action 
of the association under it, was morally wrong. 
To emigrate from one State or Territory singly, 
or in company with others, with or without in- 
corporation by statute, is a right of every citizen 
of the United States, as it is a right of every free- 
man in the world. The State that denies this 
right is a tyranny — the subject to whom it is de- 



nied is a slave. Such free emigration is the chief 
element of American progress and civilization. 
Without it, there could be no community, no politi- 
cal Territory, no State in Kansas. Without it, there 
could have been no United States of America. 
To retain and carry into Kansas cherished polit- 
ical as well as moral, social, and religious con- 
victions, is a right of every emigrant. JIust emi- 
grants to that Territory carry there only their 
persons, and leave behind their minds and souls, 
disembodied and wandering in their native 
lands? They only are fit founders of a State who 
exercise independence of opinion ; and it is to the 
exercise of that right that our new States, equally 
with all the older ones, owe their intelligence 
and vigor. 

"There are, -who, distant from tlieir native soil, 
Still lor their own and country's glor> toil; 
While some, fast rooted to their parent spot. 
In life are useless, and in death, forgot.'' 

It is not morally wrong for Massachusetts to 
aid her sons, by a charter, to do what in itself is 
innocent and commendable. The President and 
the majority of the committee maintain that such 
associations are in violation of national or at 
least of international laws. Here is the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, and here are the Stat- 
utes at Large, in ten volumes octavo. Let the 
President or his defenders point out the inhibi- 
tion. They specify, particularly, that the action 
of the State violates a law of comity, which 
regulates the intercourse of independent States, 
and especially the intercourse between the mem- 
bers of the Federal Union. Here are Vattel and 
Burlamaqui. Let them point out in these pages 
this law of comity. There is no law of comity 
which forbids nations from permitting and en- 
couraging emigration, on the ground of opinion. 
Moreover, Slavery is an outlaw under the law of 
nations. Still further, the Constituiion of the 
United States has expressly incorporated into 
itself all of the laws of comity, for regulating the 
intercourse between independent States, which 
it deems proper to adopt. Whatever is forbidden 
expressly by the Constitution is unlawful. What- 
ever is not forbidden is lawful. The supposed 
law of comity is not incorporated into the Con- 
stitution. 

With the aid of the Committee on Territories, Ave 
discover that the emigrants from Massachusetts 
have violated the supposed national laws, not by 
any unlawful conduct of their own, but by provo- 
king the unlawful andflagitiousconduct of the in- 
vaders of Kansas. "They passed through Missouri 
' in large numbers, using violent language, and 
' giving unmistakableindications of their hostility 
' to the domestic institutions of that State," and 
thus "they created apprehensions that the object 
' of the Emigrant Aid Company was to abolitionize 
' Kansas, as a means of prosecuting a relentless 
' warfare upon the institution of Slavery within 
' the limits of Missouri, wliich apprehensions, in- i 
' creasing with the progress of events, ultimately 
' became settled convictions of the people of 
' western Missourh" 

Missouri builds railroads, steamboats, and 
wharves. It cannot be, therefore, that the mere 
" largeness of the numbers " of the Eastern trav- 



ellers offended or alarmed the borderers. I con- 
fess my surprise that the sojourners used violent 
language. It seems unlike them. I confess ray 
greater surprise that the borderers were disturbed 
so deeply by mere words. It seems unlike them. 
Which of the domestic institutions of Missouri 
were those against which the travellers manifest- 
ed determined hostility ? Not certainly her man- 
ufactories, banks, railroads, churches, and schools. 
All these are domestic institutions held in high 
respect by the men of Massachusetts, and are just 
such one's as these emigrants are now establishing 
in Kansas. It was therefore African Slavery 
alone, a peculiar domestic institution of Missouri, 
against which their hostility was directed. 
Waiving a suspicious want of proof of the unwise 
conduct charged against them, I submit that 
clearly they did not thereby endanger that pecu- 
liar institution in Missouri, for they passed di- 
rectly through that State into Kansas. How, then, 
were the borderers provoked? The Missourians 
inferred, from the language and demeanor of the 
travellers, that they would aholitionize Kansas, and 
thereafter, by means of Kansas abolitionized, 
prosecute a relentless warfare against Slavery in 
Missouri. Far-seeing statesmen are these Missouri 
borderers, but less deliberate than far-sighted. 
Kansas was not to be abolitionized. It had 
never been otherwise than abolitionized. Abo- 
litionized Kansas would constitute no means for 
th6 prosecution of such a warfare. Missouri lieoi 
adjacent to abolitionized Iowa on the north, and 
to abolitionized Illinois on the east, yet neither 
of those States has ever been used tor such de- 
signs. How could this fearful enemy prosecut© 
a warfare against Slavery in Missouri ? Only by 
buying the plantations of her citizens at their 
own prices, and so qualifying themselves to speak 
their hostility through the ballot-boxes ? Could 
apprehensions so absurd justify the invasion of 
Kansas? Are the people of Kansas to be disfran- 
chised and trodden down by the President of the 
United States, in punishment for any extrava- 
gance of emigrants, in Missouri, on the way to 
that Territory? 

Such is the President's second defence, so far 
as it presents new matter in avoidance of the accu- 
sation of the new State of Kansas. 

I proceed, in the third place, to establish the 
truth of the accusations. Of what sort must the 
proofs be ? Manifestly only such as the circum- 
stances of the case permit to exist. Not engrossed 
documents, authenticated by executive, judicial, 
or legislative officers. The transactions occurred 
in an unorganized country. All the authorities 
subsequently established in the Territory are 
implicated, all the complainants disfranchised. 
Only presumptive evidence, derived from the 
contemporaneous statements and actions of the 
parties concerned, can be required. 

Such presumptive evidence is derived from the 
nature and character of the President's defences. 
Why did the President plead at all on the 31st 
of December last, when the new State of Kansas 
was yet unorganized, and could not appear here 
to prefer her accusations until the 23d of March ? 
Why, if he must answer so prematurely, did he 
not plead a general and direct d>:nial? If ho 



must plead specially, why did he not set forth the 
facts, instead of withholdiEg all actual informa- 
ition concerning the case? Why, since, instead of 
'defending himself, he must implead his accuser, 
did he not state, at least, the ground on 
Which that accuser claimed to justify the conduct 
\f which he complained ? Why did he threaten 
fto overcome and suppress" the people of Kan- 
las, as insurrectionists, if he did not mean to 
ierrify them, and to prevent their appearing here, 
jr at least to prejudice their cause? Why did 
ie mock them with a promise of protection there- 
ater, against interference by citizens of other 
States, if they should deport themselves peace- 
fijly and submissively to I he Territorial authori- 
ties, if no cause for apprehending such interference 
hitl already been given by previous invasion? 
WVy did he labor to embarrass his accuser by 
idhtitying her cause with the subject of aboli- 
tion of Slavery, and stigmatize her supporters 
will opprobrious epithets, and impute to them 
de^aved and seditious motives ? Why did he 
intepose the false and impertinent issue, whether 
oneState could intervene by its laws or by force 
to polish Slavery in another State ? Why did 
he listort the Coustitntion, and jiresent it as ex- 
pre^ly guarantying the perpetuity of Slavery? 
Whjdid he arraign so unnecessarily and so un- 
justll not one, but all of the original Northern 
Stat« ? Why did he drag into this case, where 
onlytansas is concerned, a studied, partial, and 
prejuicial history of the past enlargements of the 
uatiqal domain, and of the past contests between 
the sive States and the free States, in their rivalry 
for tb balance of power ? 

Wn did not the President rest content with 
one sfth attack on the character and conduct of 
the mv State of Kansas, in anticipating her 
cominl if he felt assured that she really had no 
merit |n which to stand? Why did he submit 
a secoid plea in advance? Why 'in this plea 
does \\ deplore the delays which prevented the 
Missoul borderers from effecting the conquest of 
Kansaaand the establishment of Slavery there- 
in, at tB time of the Congressional election held 
in Novhber, 1854, in fraud of the Kansas law, 
and oflustice and humanity? Why, without 
reason, V authority of public or of national law, 
does hettenounce Massachusetts, her Emigrant 
Aid Sociy, and her emigrants ? If " propagand- 
ist" emii-ations must be denounced, why does 
he spare \e Platte County Self-Defensive Associ- 
ation? [hy does he charge Governor Reeder 
with "faing to put forth all his energies to pre- 
' vent orkounteract the tendencies to illegality 
' which a found to exist in all imperfectly organ- 
' ized anc^ewly associated countries," if, indeed, 
no "illegt^ty" has occurred there? While thus, 
by impliciion, admitting that such illegality has 
occurred 1 Kansas, why does he not tell us its 
nature am^xtent ? Why, when Gov. Reeder was 
implicatedli personal conduct, not criminal, but 
incongruoil with his official relations, did the 
President tain him in office until after he had 
proclaimed^ Easton that Kansas had been subju- 
gated by th(3orderers of Missouri, and why, after 
he had douRo, and had denounced the Legisla- 
ture, did thpresident remove him for the same 



pre-existing cause only? Why does the President 
admit that the election for the legislative bodies 
of Kansas was held under circumstances inaus- 
picious to a truthful and legal result, if, never- 
theless, the result attained was indeed a truthful 
and legal one? On what evidence does the 
President ground his statement, that after tliat 
election, there were mut<al complaints of usurp- 
ation, fraud, and violence, when we hear from 
no other quarter of such complaints made by the 
party that prevailed? If there were such mutual 
accusations, and even if they rested on probable 
grounds, would that fact abate the right of 
the people of Kansas to a Government of their 
own, securing a safe and well-ordered free- 
dom ? Why does the President argue that the 
Governor (Mr. Reeder) alone had the power to 
receive and consider the returns of the election 
of the Legislative bodies, and that he certified 
those returns in fifteen out of the twenty-two 
districts, when he knows that the Governor, 
being his own agent, gave the certificates, on the 
ground that the returns were technically correct, 
and that the illegality complained of was in tlw 
conduct of the elections, and in the making up of 
the returns by the judges, and that the terror of 
the armed invasion prevented all complaints of 
this kind from being presented to the Governor? 
Why does the President repose on the fact that 
the Governor, on the ground of informality in the 
returns, rejected the members who were chosen 
in the seven other districts, and ordered new elec- 
tions therein, and certified in favor of the pw- 
sons then chosen, when he knows that the ma- 
jority, elected in the fifteen districts, expelled at 
once the persons chosen at such second elections, 
and admitted those originally returned as elected 
in these seven districts, on the ground that the 
Governor's rejection of them, and the second 
elections which he ordered, were unauthorized 
and illegal? Why does the President, although 
omitting to mention this last fact, nevertheless 
justify the expulsion of these newly elected mem- 
bers, on the ground that it was authorized hj 
parliamentary law, when he knows that there 
was no {)arliamentary or other law existing in 
the Territory, but the organic act of Congress^ 
which conferred no such power on the Legisla- 
ture? Why was Governor Reeder replaced \>j 
Mr. Shannon, who immediately proclaimed that 
the Legislative bodies which his predecessor had 
denounced were the legitimate Legislature of the 
Territory? Why does the President plead that 
the subject of the alleged Missourian usurpation 
and tyranny in Kansas was one which, by its 
nature, appertained exclusively to the jurisdic- 
tion of the local authorities of the Territory, 
when, if the charges were true, there were no 
legitimate local authorities within the Territory? 
Is a foreign usurpation in a defenceless Territory 
of the United States to be tolerated, if only it be 
successful? And is the Government de facto, br 
whomsoever usurped, and with whatever tyranny- 
exercised, entitled to demand obedience from tha 
people, and to be recognised by the President of 
the United States? Why does he plead, that 
" whatever irregularities may have occurred, it 
\3 now too late to raise the question ? " Is there 



8 



nothing left but endurance to citizens of the 
United States, constituting a whole political 
community of men, women, and children — an 
incipient America,n State — subjugated and op- 
pressed ? Must they sit down in peace, abandon- 
ed, contented, and despised? Why does he plead, 
that "at least it is a question as to which, neither 
' now, nor at any previous time, has the least 
' possible legal authority been possessed by the 
' President of the United States?" Did any magis- 
trate ever before make such an exhibition of 
ambitious imbecility? Cannot Congress clothe 
him with power to act, and is it not his duty to 
ask power to remove usurpation and subvert tyr- 
anny in a Territory of the United States? Are 
these the tone, the tenor, and the staple, of a de- 
fence, where the accused is guiltless, and the 
crimes charged were never committed? The 
President virtually confesses all the transactions 
charged, by thus presenting a connected system 
of maxims and principles, invented to justify 
them. 

I proceed, however, to clinch conviction by 
direct and positive proofs : First, the statements 
of the party which has been overborne. Genei-al 
Pomeroy and his associates, in behalf of the 
State of Kansas, make this representation con- 
cerning the Congressional election held in the 
Territory on the 30th of November, -ISS-i: 

"The first ballot-box that was opened upon 
' onr virgin soil was closed to us by overpower- 
' ing numbers and impending force. So bold and 
' reckless were our invaders, that they cared not 
' to conceal their attack. They came upon us, 
' not in the guise of voters, to steal away our 
' franchise, but boldly and openly, to snatch it 
' with a strong hand. They came directly from 
' their own homes, and in compact and organi- 
' zed bauds, with arms in hand and provisions for 
' the expedition, marched to our polls, and, when 
' their work was done, returned whence they came. 
' It is unnecessary to enter into the details ; it is 
' enough to say that in three districts, in which, 
' by the most irrefragable evidence, there were not 
' one hundred and fifty voters, most of whom re- 
' fised to participate in the mockery of the elect- 

• ive franchise, these invaders polled over a thou- 
' sand votes." 

In regard to the election of the 30th of March, 
1855, the same party states: 

"They (the Missourians) arrived at their sev- 
' eral destinations the night before the election, 
' and having pitched their camps and placed their 
' sentries, waited for the coming day. Baggage 
' wagons were there, with arms and ammunition 
' enough for a protracted fight, and among them two 
' brass field-pieces, ready charged. They came with 
' drums beating and flags flying, and their leaders 
' were of the most prominent and conspicuous 
' men of their respective States. In the morning 
' they surrounded the polls, armed with guns, 
' bowie-knives, and revolvers, and declared their 
' determination to vote at all hazards, and in 
' spite of all consequences. If the judges could 
' be made to subserve their purposes, and receive 

* their votfe, and if no obstacle was cast in their 
' way, their leaders exerted themselves to pre- 
' serve peace and order in the conduct of the 



election ; but at the same time did not hesitate 
to declare, that if not allowed to vote, the^" 
would proceed to any extremity in destructioi 
of property and life. If the control of the polls 
could not be had otherwise, the judges were by 
intimidation, and, if necessary, by violence, pre- 
vented from performing their duty, or, if ui- 
yielding in this respect, were driven from thdr 
post, and the vacancy filled in form by the per- 
sons on the ground ; and whenever by any meais 
they had obtained the control of the board, tie 
foreign vote was promiscuously poured in, witi- 
out discrimination or reserve, or the. slightfst 
care to conceal its nefarious illegality. At one 
of the polls, two of the judges having man- 
fully stood up in the face of the armed nob, 
and declared they would do their duty, one 'or- 
tion of the mob commenced to tear downtbe 
house, another proceeded to break in the loor 
of the judges' foom, whilst others, with dnwn 
knives, posted themselves at the window, vith 
the proclaimed purpose of killing any voterwho 
would allow himself to be sworn. Voters vere 
dragged from the window, because they vould 
not show their tickets, or vote at the dicdtion 
of the mob ; and the invaders declared opnly, 
at the polls, that they would cut the thrats of 
the judges, if they did not receive theirvotes 
without requiring an oath as to their resience. 
The room was finally forced, and the judges, 
surrounded by an armed and excited rowd, 
were offered the alternative of resignaon or 
death, and five minutes were allowed fc their 
decision. The ballot-box was seized, an, amid 
shouts of 'Hurrah for Missouri,' was arried 
into the mob. The tAvo menaced judcs then 
left the ground, together with 'all the isident 
citizens, except a few who acted in the utrage, 
because the result expected from it correponded 
to their own views. 

" When an excess of the foreign force ws found 
to be had at one poll, detachments wei sent to 
the others. * * * * A minist' of the 
Gospel, who refused to accede to the.emands 
of a similar mob of some 400 armed ail organ- 
ized men, was driven by violence frouhis post, 
and the vacancy filled by themselves. '•' * * 
* Another clergyman, for the exp;ssion of 
his opinion, was assaulted and beati. * '^ 

* * The inhabitants of the distr't, power- 
less to resist the abundant supply ofarms and 
ammunition, organized preparation, xnd over- 
whelming numbers of the foreigne;, left the 
polls without voting. * * * T the Law- 
rence district, one voter was fired atas he was 
driven from the election ground. * * * 
Finding they had a greater force tin was ne- 
cessary for that poll, some 200 men '3re drafted 
from the number, and sent off undethe proper 
officers to another district, after whh theyst-ill 
polled from this camp TOO votes. * * In 
the 4th and 7th districts, the inxders came 
together in an armed and organize body, with 
trains of fifty wagons, besides hoemen, and, 
the night before election, pitchedheir camps " 
in the vicinity of the polls, -and hang appoint- 
ed their own judges, in place of tbe who, from 
intimidation .or otherwise, failed tattend, they 



9 



' voted -without any proof of residence. In these 
' two election districts, where the census shows 
' 100 voters, there were polled 314 votes, and last 
' fall 765 votes, although a lai'ge part of the act- 
' ual residents did not vote on either occasion. 
I * * * * From a careful examination of 
' the returns, we are satisfied that over 3,000 
' votes were thus cast by the citizens and resi- 
' dents of the States." 

I place in opposition to these statements of the 
party that was overborne, the statements of the 
party that prevailed, beginning with signals of 
the attack, and ending with celebrations of the 
victory. 

General Stringfellow addressed the invaders 
in Missouri, on the eve of the election of March 
30, 1855, thus: 

" To those who have qualms of conscience as 
' to violating laws, State or National, the time 
' has come when such impositions must be dis- 
' regarded, as your rights and property are in 
' danger; and I advise you, one and all, to enter 
' every election district in Kansas, in defiance of 
' Reecler and his vile myrmidons, and vote, at the 
' point of the bowie-knife and revolver. Neither 
' give nor take quarter, as our case demands it. 
' It is enough that the slaveholding interest wills 
' it, from which there is no appeal. What right 
' has Governor Reeder to rule Missourians in 
' Kansas ? His proclamation and prescribed 
' oath must be repudiated. It is your interest 
' to do so. Mind that Slavery is established 

* where it is not prohibited." 

The Kansas Herald^ an organ of both the 
Administration and the Pro-Slavery party, an- 
nounced the result of the Legislative election in j 
the Territory immediately afterwards, as follows: 

" Yesterday was a proud and glorious day for 
' the friends of Southern Rights. The triumph of 
' the Pro-Slavery party is complete and over- 
' whelming. Come on. Southern men ! Bring 
' your slaves, and fill up the Territory ! Kansas 
' is saved ! " 

The Squatter Sovereign, published in Missouri, 
thus announced the result of the election, the 
day after it closed : 

"Independence, March 31, 1855. 

" Several hundred emigrants from Kansas have 

* just entered our city. They were preceded by 
' the "Westport and Independence brass bands. 
' They came in at the west side of the public 
' square, and proceeded entirely around it, the 
' bands cheering us with fine music, and the em- 
' igrants with good news. Immediately following 
' the bands were about two hundred horsemen 
' in regular order ; following these were one hun- 
' dred and fifty wagons, carriages, itc. They 
' gave repeated cheers for Kansas and Missouri. 
' They report that not an Anti-Slaverj' man will 
' be in the Legislature of Kansas. We have made 
' a clean sweep." 

A letter written at Brunswick, in Missouri, 
dated April 20th, 1855, and published in the 
New York Herald, a Pro-Slavery journal, says 
that " from five to seven thousand men started 
' from Missouri to attend the election, some to 
' remove, but the most to return to their families, 



' with an intention, if they liked the Territory, to 
' make it their permanent abode, at the earliest 
' moment practicable. But they intended to vote. 
' The Missourians were, many of them, Douglas 
' men. There were 150 voters from this county, 
' 175 from Howard, 100 from Cooper. Indeed,- 
' every county furnished its quota ; and when 
' they set out, it looked like an army. -* * 
' They were armed. * * * And, as there 
' were no houses in the Territory,' they carried 
' tents. Their missii^n was a peaceable one — to 
' vote, and to drive down stakes for their future 
' homes. After the election, some 1,500 of the 
' voters sent a committee to 'Slv. Reeder, to ascer- 
' tain if it was his purpose to ratify the election. 
' He answered that it was, and said the majority 
' at an election must carry the day. But it is 
' not to be denied that the 1,500, apprehending 
' that the Governor might attempt to play the 
' tyrant — since his conduct had already been in- 
' sidious and unjust — wore on their hats bunches 
' of hemp. They Avere resolved, if a tyrant at- 
' tempted to trample upon the rights of the sov- 
' ereign people, to hang him." 

On'the 29th of May, 1855, the Squatter Sover- 
eign, an organ of the invasion in Missouri, thus 
gave utterance to its spirit : 

"From reports now received of Reeder, he 
' never intends returning to our borders. 
' Should he do so, we, without hesitation, say 
' that our people ought to liang him by the neck, 
' like a traitorous dog as he is, so soon as he puts 
' his unhallowed feet upon our shores. 

" Vindicate your characters and the Territory; 
' and should the ungrateful dog dare to come 
' among us again, hang him to the first rotten 
' tree. 

"A military force to protect the ballot-box! 
' Let President Pierce, or Governor Reeder, or 
' any other power, attempt such a course in this, 
' or any portion of the Union, and that day will 
' never be forgotten." 

Governor Reeder, at Easton, in Pennsylvania, 
on his first return to that place after the elec- 
tions, declared the same result in frank and can- 
did words, which cost him his office, namely : 

" It was iudeed too true that Kansas had been 
' invaded, conquered, subjugated, hy an armed 
' force from beyond her borders, led on by a fa- 
' natical spirit, trampling under foot the princi- 
' pies of the Kansas bill and the right of suflrage." 

The Honorable David R. Atchison, a direct and 
out-spoken man, who never shrinks from responsi- 
bility, and who is confessedly eminent at once as 
a political leader in Missouri and as a leader 
of the Pro-Slavery movement therein directed 
against Kansas, in a speech reported as having 
been made to his fellow-citizens, and which, so 
far as I know, has not been disavowed, said : 

" I saw it with my own eyes. These men 
' came with the avowed purpose of driving or 
' expelling you from the Territory. What did I 
' advise you to do ? Why, meet them at their 
' own game. When the first election came off, I 
' told you to go over and vote. You did so, and 
' beat them. We, our party in Kansas, nominated 
' General Whitfield. They, the Abolitionists, 
' nominated Fleuuiken : not Flanegan, for Flan- 



10 



' egan was a good, honest man, but Fhnni- 
' km. Well, the next day after the election, that 
' that same Flenniken, with three hundred of his 
' voters, left the Territory, and has never ro- 
' turned — no, never returned ! 

"Well, what -next? Why, an election for 
' members of the Legislature, to organize the 
' Territory, must be held. What did I advise | 
' you to do then ? Why, meet them on their 
' own ground, and beat them at their own game 
' again ; and, cold and inclement as the weather 
' was, I went over with a company of men. My 
' object in going M'as not to vote ; I had not a 
' right to vote, unless I had disfranchised myself 
' in ilissouri. I was not within two miles of a 
' voting place. My object in going was n»t to 
' vote, but to settle a difficulty between two of 
' our candidates ; and Abolitionists of the North 
' said, and published it abroad, that Atchison was 
* there with bowie-knife and revolver, and by God 
' 'twas true. I never did go into that Territory, I 
' never intend to go into that Territory, without 
' being prepared for all such kind of cattle. Well, 
' we beat them ; and Gov. Reeder gave certifi- 
' cates to a majority of all the members of both 
' Houses; and then, after they were organized, as 
' everybody will admit, they were the only com- 
' petent persons to say who were and who were 
' not members of the same." 

A tree is known by its fruits. If Missourians 
voted in Kansas, it would be expected that the 
ballots deposited would exceed the number of 
electors. Just so it was. We have seen that it 
was so asserted. The Executive Journal, recent- 
ly obtained, proves that in four districts, where 
the results were not contested, 2,9ti4 votes were 
cast on the 30th of March, although only l,3e5 
voters were there, as ascertained by the census. 
Again : The Legislature chosen on the 30th of 
March, 1855, withdrew from the interior of the 
Territory to a place inconvenient to its citizens, 
and on the border of Missouri. There that Legis- 
lature enacted laws to this effect, namely : forbid- 
ding the speaking, writing, or printing, or pub- 
lishing, of anything, in any form, calculated to 
disaffect slaves, or induce them to escape, under 
pain of not less than five years imprisonment with 
hard labor ; and forbidding free persons from 
maintaining, by speech, writing, or printing, or 
publishing, that slaves cannot lawfully be held 
in the Territory, under pain of imprisonment and 
hard labor two years. 

The Legislature further enacted, that no per- 
son " conscientiously opposed to holding slaves," 
or entertaining doubts of the legal existence of 
feftavery in Kansas, shall sit as a juror in the 
trial of any cau^e founded on a breach of the 
laws which I have described. They further pro- 
vided, that all officers and attorneys should be 
sworn, not only to support the Constitution of 
the United States, but also to support and sus- 
tain the organic laiv of the Terriiori/, and the Fu- 
gitive Slave Law ; aud that any persons offering to 
vote shall be presumed to be entitled to vote un- 
til the contrary is shown ; and if any one, when 
required, shall refuse to take an oath to sustain 
the Fucritive Slave Law, he shall not be permitted 
to vote. Although they passed a law that none 



but an inhabitant who had paid a tax should 
vote, yet they made no time of residence necessary, 
and provided for the immediate payment of a 
poll tax ; so virtually declaring that on the eve 
of an election the people of a neighboring State 
can come in, in unlimited numbers, and, by ta- 
king up a residence of a day or an hour, pay a 
poll tax, and thus become legal voters, and then, 
after voting, return to their own State. They thus, 
in practical effect, provided for the people of Mis- 
souri to control future elections at their pleasure, 
and permitted such only of the real inhabitants 
of the Territory to vote as are friendly to the hold- 
ing of slaves. 

They permitted no election of any of the offi- 
cers in the Territory to be made by the people 
thereof, but created the oflices, and filled them, or 
appointed officers to fill them, for long periods. 
They provided that the next annual election should 
be h'jld in October, 1856, and the Assembly should 
meet in January, 1857; so that none of thesa 
laws could be changed until the lower House 
might be changed, in 1856; but the Council, 
which is elected for two years, could not be 
changed so as to allow a change of the laws or 
officers until the session of 1858, however much 
the inhabitants of the Territory might desire it. 
How forcibly do these laws illustrate that old 
political maxim of the English nation, that -a 
Parliament called by a conqueror is itself con^ 
quered and enslaved 1 Who but foreigners, usurp- 
ers, and tyrants, could have made for the people 
of Kansas— a people " perfectly free " — such laws 
as these. Anatomists will describe the instru- 
ment, and even the force of the blow, if oi\\j you 
show them the wound. 

Behold the proofs on which the allegations of 
invasion, usurpation, and tyranny, made by the 
new State of Kansas, rest. They are, first : th-e 
President's own virtual admission, by defences in- 
direct, irrelevant, ill-tempered, sophistical, and 
evasive; second: an absolute agreement, con- 
currence, and harmony, between the statements 
of the conflicting parties who were engaged in 
the transactions involved; third: the consequen- 
ces of those transactions exactly such as must fol- 
low, if the accusations be true, and such as could 
not result if they be false. A few words, however, 
must be added, to bring more distinctly into view 
the President's complicity in these transactions, 
and to establish his responsibility therefor. The 
President openly lent his official influence aiul 
patronage to the slaveholders of Missouri, to effect 
the abrogation of the prohibition of Slavery in 
Kansas, contained in the act of Congress of 1820. 
He knew their purposes in regard to the elections 
in Kansas. He never interfered to prevent, to de- 
feat, or to hinder them. He employed his official 
patronage to aid them. He now defends and pro- 
tects the usurpation and tyranny, established by 
the invaders in Kansas, with all the influence of 
his exalted station, and even with the military 
power of the Republic; and he argues the duty of 
the people there to submit to the forcible establish- 
ment of Slavery, in violation of the national 
pledge, which he concurred in giving, that they 
should be left perfectly free to reject and exclude 
that justly obnoxious system. It thus appeaxa 



that the President of the United States holds the 
people of Kansas prostrate and enslaved at his 
feet. 

To complete the painful account of this great 
crime, it is necessary now to add that there has 
not been one day nor night, since the Government 
of Kansas was constituted and confided to the 
President of the United States, in which either 
the properties, or the liberties, or even the lives, 
of its citizens have been secure against the vio- i 
lence and vengeance of the extreme foreign faction 
which he upholds and protects. At this day, Kan- 
Bas is becoming, more distinctly than before, the 
scene of a conflict of irreconcilable opinions, to be 
determined by brute force. No immigrant goes 
there unarmed, no citizen dwells there in safety un- 
armed ; armed masses ®f men are proceeding 
into the Territory, from various parts of the Uni- 
ted States, to complete the work of invasion and 
tyranny which he has thus begun, under circum- 
fitances of fraud and perfidy unworthy of the 
ciiaracter of a ruler of a free people. This gath- 
ei'ing conflict in Kansas divides the sympathies, 
interests, passions, and prejudices, of the people of 
tlie United States. Whether, under such circum- 
stances, it can be circumscribed within the limits 
of the Territory of Kansas, must be determined 
by statesmen from their knowledge of the courses 
of civil commotions, which have involved ques- 
tions of moral right and conscientious duty, as 
well as balances of political power. Whether, 
on the other hand, the people of Kansas, under 
these circumstances, will submit to this tyranny 
of a citizen of the United States like themselves, 
whose term of political power is nearly expired, 
can be determined by considering it in the aspect 
in which it is viewed by themselves. Speechless 
here, as they yet are, I give utterance to their 
united voices, and, holding in my hand the ar- 
raignment of George III, by the Congress of 
1776, 1 impeach— in the words of that immortal 
text — the President of the United States: 

"lie has refused to pass laws for the accom- 
' modatiou of the people, unless they would re- 
' liuquish the right of representation in their 
' Legislature, a right inestimable to them, and 
' formidable to tyrants only : 

" He has called together legislative bodies at 
' a place unusual, uncomfortable, and distant 
' from the depository of their public records, for 
' the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compli- 
' ance with his measures : 

lie has prevented Legislative Houses from 
being elected, for no other cause than his con- 
viction that they would "oppose with manly 
' firmness his invasions on the rights of the 
' people: 

"He has refused for a long time after" spuri- 
0113 Legislative Houses were imposed by himself, 
l)y usurpation, on the people of Kansas "to cause 
' others to be elected, whereby the legislative 
' powers, incapable of annihilation, have return- 
' ed to the people at large, for their exercise, the 
' State remaining in the mean time exposed to 
' all the danger .of invasion from without, and 
' civil war within : 

"He has created a multitude of new oflices, and 



' sent hither swarms of oflkers, to harass our 
' people, and eat out their substance : 

"He has kept among us, in times of peace, 
' standing armies, to compel our submission to a 
' foreign" Legislature, " and has affected to ren- 
' der the military independent of, and superior 
' to, the civil power : 

"He has combined with others to subject us 
' to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution. 
• and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his 
' assent to their acts of pretended legislation : 

"For protecting" invaders of Kansas "from 
' punishment for any murders which they shall 
' commit on the inhabitants" of this Territory: 

" For abolishing the fVee system of American 
'law in" this Territory, "establishing therein 
' an arbitrary Government, so as to render it at 
' once an example and fit instrument for intro- 
' ducing the same absolute rule into" other Ter- 
ritories : 

" For taking away our charter, abolishing our 
' most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally 4 

' the powers of our Government: 

"For suspending our own Legislature, and 
' declaring " an usurping Legislature, constitu- 
ted by himself, "invested with power to legislate 
' for us in all cases whatsoever." 

What is wanting here to fill up the complement 
of a high judicial process? Is it an accuser? 
The youngest born of the Republic is before you, 
imploring you to rescue her from immolation on 
the altar of public faction. Is it a crime? Be- 
think yourselves what it is that has been sub- 
verted. It is the whole of a complete and round- 
ed-off Republican Government of a Territory 
indeed, by name, but, in substance, a Civil State. 
Consider the effect. The People of Kansas were 
" perfectly free." They now are free only to sub- 
mit and obey. Consider whose system that Re- 
publican Government was, and the Power that 
established it. It was one of the Constitutions 
of the United States, established by an act of the 
Congress of the L^nited States. Consider what a 
tyranny it is that has been built on that atro- 
cious usurpation. It is not a discriminating tyr- 
anny, that selects and punishes one, or a few, or 
even many, but it disfranchises all, and reduces 
every citizen to abject slavery. Examine the 
code created by the Legislature. All the statutes 
of the State of Missouri are enacted in gross, 
without alteration or amendment, for the gov- 
ernment of Kansas ; and then, at the end, the 
hasty blunder of misnomer is corrected by an 
explanatory act, that wherever the word " State " 
occurs, it means "Territory." And what a cod-e! 
One that stifles not, indeed, the fruits of the 
womb, but the equally important element of a 
State, the fruits — the immortal fruits — of the 
mind; a code that puts in peril all rights and 
liberties whatsoever, by denying to men tbe right 
to know, to utter, and to argue, freely, according 
to conscience — a right in itself conservative of all 
other rights and liberties. Is an offender want- 
ing? He stands before you, in many respects the 
most eminent man in all the world — the Presi- 
dent of the United States — the constitutional and 
chosen defender and protector of the people who 
have been subjugated and enslaved, la there 



12 



anything of dignity or authority wanting to this 
tribunal? Where elsewhere shall be found one 
more august than the Senate of the United States? 
It is the ancient, constant, and undoubted right 
and usage of Parliaments — it is the chief purpose 
of their being — to question and complain of all 
persons, of what degree soever, found grievous 
to the CommonM-ealth, in abusing the power and 
trust committed to them by the People. Does 
this tribunal need a motive ? We have that, too, 
in painful reality. These usurpations and op- 
pressions have hitherto rested with the President 
of the United States, and those whom he has 
abetted. If they shall be left unredressed, they 
will henceforth become, by adoption, our own. 

The conviction of the offending President is 
complete, and now he sinks out of view. His 
punishment rests with the People of the United 
States, whose trust he has betrayed. His convic- 
tion M-as only incidental to the business which is 
the order of the day. The order of the day is 
the redress of the wrongs of Kansas. 

How like unto each other are the parallels of 
tyranny and revolution in all countries and in all 
times ! Kansas is to-day in the very act of revo- 
lution against a tyranny of the President of the 
United States, identical in all its prominent fea- 
tures with that tyranny of the King of England 
which gave birth to the American Revolution. 
Kansas has instituted a revolution, simply be- 
cause ordinary remedies can never be applied 
in great political emergencies. There is a pro- 
found philosophy that belongs to revolutions. 
According to that philosophy, the President is 
assumed by the people of Kansas to entertain a 
resentment which can never be apjieased, an«J 
his power, consequently, must be wholly'' taken 
away. Happily, however, for Kansas, and for 
us, her revolution is one that was anticipated 
and sanctioned and provided for in the Constitu- 
tion of the United States, and is therefore a 
peaceful and (paradoxical as the expression 
may seem) a constitutional one. Never before 
have I seen occasion so great for admiring 
the wisdom and forecast of those who raised 
that noble edifice of civil government. The 
people of Kansas, deprived of their sovereigntj^ 
by a domestic tyranny, have nevertheless law- 
fully rescued it provisionally, and, so exercising it, 
have constituted themselves a State, and applied 
to Congress to admit them as such into the 
Federal Union. Congress has power to admit 
tlie new State thus organized. The favorable exer- 
cise of that power will terminate and crown the rev- 
olution. Once a State, the people of Kansas can 
preserve internal order, and defend themselves 
against invasion. Thus, the constitutional rem- 
edy is as eifectual as it is peaceful and simple. 

This is the remedy for the evils existing in the 
Territory of Kansas, which I propose. Happily, 
tliere is no need to prove it to be either a lawful 
one or a proper one, or the only possible one. 
The President of the United States and the Com- 
mittee on Territories unanimously concede all 
this broad ground, because he recommends it, 
and they adopt it. 

Wherein, then, do I differ from them? Sim- 
ply thus. I propose to apply the remedy now, by 



admitting the new State with its present popula- 
tion and present Constitution. My opponents 
insist on postponing the measure until the Terri- 
tory shall be conceded by the usurping author- 
ities to contain 93,700 inhabitants, and until 
those authorities shall direct and authorize the 
people to organize a new State, under a new Con- 
stitution. In other words, I propose to allow 
the people of Kansas to apply the constitutional 
remedy at once. The President proposes to de- 
fer it indefinitely, and to commit the entire ap- 
plication of it to the hands of the I\lissouri bor- 
derers. He confesses the inadequacy of that 
course by asking appropriations of money to 
enable him to maintain and preserve order within 
the Territorj' until the indefinite period when the 
constitutional remedy shall be applied. There 
is no sufficient reason for the delay which the 
President advises. He admits the rightfulness 
and necessity of the remedy. It is as rightful 
and necessary now as it ever will be. It is de- 
manded by the condition and circumstances of 
the people of Kansas now. You cannot justly 
postpone, any more than you can justly deny, 
that right. To postpone would be a denial. 
The President will need no grant of money, or 
of armed men, to enforce obedience to law, when 
you shall have redressed the wrongs of which 
the People complain. Even under Govern- 
ments less free than our own, there is no need 
of power where justice holds the helm. When 
justice is impartially administered, the obedience 
of the subject or citizen will be voluntary, cheer- 
ful, and practically unlimited. Freedom justly 
due cannot be conceded too soon. True free- 
dom exists, the utmost bounds of civil liberty are 
obtained, only where complaints are freely heard, 
deeply considered, and speedily redressed. So 
only can you restore to Kansas the perfect free- 
dom which you pledged, and she has lost. 

The Constitution does not prescribe 93,700, or 
any other number of people, as necessary to con- 
stitute a State. Besides, under the present ratio 
of increase, Kansas, whose population now is 
40,000, will number 100,000 in a few mouths. 
The point made concerning numbers is there- 
fore practically unimportant and frivolous. The 
President objects that the past proceedings, by 
which the new state of Kansas was organized, 
were irregular in three respects : First. That 
they were instituted, conducted, and completed, 
without a previous permission by Congress, or 
by the local authorities within the Territory. 
Secondly. That they were instituted, conduct- 
ed, and completed, by a party, and not by the 
whole people of Kansas ; and, thirdly, that the 
new State holds an attitude of defiance and in- 
subordination towards the Territorial authori- 
ties and the Federal Union. I reply, first, that if 
the proceedings in question were irregular and 
partisanlike and factious, the exigencies of tha 
case would at least excuse the faults, and Con- 
gress has unlimited discretion to waive them. 
Secondly. The proceedings were not thus irregu- 
lar, partisanlike, and factious, because no act of 
Congress forbade them — no act of the Territorial 
Legislature forbade them, directly or by impli- 
cation — nor had the Territorial Legislature power 



13 



either to authorize or to prohibit them. The 
proceedings were, indeed, instituted by a party 
who favored them. But they were prosecuted 
and consummated in the customary forms of pop- 
ular elections, wliich were open to all the inhab- 
itants of the Territory qualified to vote by the 
organic law, and to no others ; and thej- have in 
no case come into conflict, nor does the new State 
now act or assume to engage in conflict with 
either the Territorial authorities or the Govern- 
ment of the Union. Thirdly. There can be no 
irregularit}' where there is no law prescribing 
what shall be regular. Congress has passed no 
law establishing regulations for the organization 
or admission of new States. Precedents in such 
cases, being without foundation in law, are with- 
out authority. This is a country whose Govern- 
ment is regulated, not by precedents, but by 
Gonstitutioc.3. But if precedents were necessary, 
tliey are found in the cases of Texas and Califor- 
nia, each of which was organized and admitted, 
subject to the same alleged irregularities. 

The majority of the Committee on Territories, 
in behalf of tlic President, interpose one further 
objection, by tracing this new State organization 
to the influence of a secret, armed, political soci- 
ety. Secrecy and combination, with e.xtra-judi- 
cial oaths and armed power, were the enginery 
of the Missouri borderers in effecting the subju- 
gation of the people of Kansas, as that machinery 
is always employed in the commission of politi- 
cal crimes. How far it was lawful or morally 
right for the people of Kansas to employ the 
same agencies for the defence of their lives and 
liberties, may be a question for casuists, but cer- 
tainly is not one for me. I can freely confess, 
however, my deep regret that secret societies for 
any purpose whatsoever have obtained a place 
among political organizations within the Pv,epub- 
lic ; and it is my hope that the experience which 
we have now so distinctly had, that they can be 
but too easily adapted to unlawful, seditious, and 
dangerous enterprises, while they bring down 
suspicion and censure on high and noble causes 
when identified with them, may be sufficient to 
ind'ice a general discontinuance of them. 

Will the Senate hesitate for an hour between 
the alternatives before them? The passions of 
the American People find healthful exercise in 
peaceful colonizations, and the construction of 
railroads, and the building up and multiplying of 
republican institutions. The Territory of Kansas 
lies across the path through which railroads must 
be built, and along which such institutions must 
be founded, witliout delay, in order to preserve 
the integrity of our Empire. Shall we suppress 
enterprises so benevolent and so healthful, and 
inflame our country with that fever of intestine 
war which exhausts and ccwsumea not more the 
wealth and strength than the virtue and freedom 
of a nation? Shall we confess that the procla- 
mation of popular sovereignty within the Terri- 
tory of Kansas was not merely a failure, but was 
a pretence and a fraud ? Or will Senators now 
contend that the people of Kansas, destitute as 
they are of a Legislature of their own, of Exec- 
utive authorities of their own, of Judicial author- 
ities of their own, of a militia of their own, of! 



revenues of their own subject to disposal by 
themselves, practically deprived as they are of the 
rights of voting, serving as jurors, and of writing, 
printing, and speaking, their own opinions, are 
nevertheless in the enjoyment and exercise ^f 
popular sovereignty? Shall we confess before 
the world, after so brief a trial, that this great 
political system ol' ours is inadequate either to 
enable the majority to control through the opera- 
tion of opinion, without force, or to give security 
to the citizen against tyranny and domestic vio- 
lence? Are we prepared so soon to relinquish 
our simple and beautiful systems of republican 
government, and to substitute in their place the 
machinery of usurpation and despotism? 

The Congress of the United States can refuse 
admission to Kansas only on the ground that 
it will not relinquish the hope of carrying Afri- 
can Slavery into that new Territory. If you are 
prepared to assume that ground, why not do it 
manfully and consistently, and establish Slavery 
there by a direct and explicit act of Congress ? 
But have we come to that stage of demoralization 
and degeneracy so soon? We, who commenced 
our political existence and gained the sympathies 
of the world by proclaiming to other nations that 
we held " these truths to be self-evident : That 
' all men are born equal, and have certain inalien- 
' able rights ; and that among these rights are 
' life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness:" we, 
who in the spirit of that declaration have as- 
sumed to teach and to illustrate, for the benefit 
of mankind, a higher and better civilization than 
they have hitherto known ! If the Congress of 
the United States shall persist in this attempt, 
then they shall at least allow me to predict its 
results. Either you will not establish African 
Slavery in Kansas, or you will do it at the cost 
of the sacrifice of all the existing liberties of the 
American people. Even if Slavery were, what it 
is not, a boon to the people of Kansas, they would 
reject it if enforced upon their acceptance by 
Federal bayonets. The attempt is in conflict with 
all the tendencies of the age. African Slavery has, 
for the last fifty years, been giving way, as well 
in this country as in the islands and on the main 
land throughout this hemisphere. The ])oliticaI 
power and prestige of Slavery in the United 
States are passing away. The slave States 
practically governed the Union directly for fifty 
years. They govern it now, only indirectly, 
through the agency of Northern hands, tempo- 
rarily enlisted in their support. So much, owing 
to the decline of their power, tliey have already 
conceded to the free States. The next step, if 
they persist in their present course, will be the 
resumption and exercise by the free States of the 
control of the Government, without such conces- 
sions as they have hitherto made to obtain it. 
Throughout a period of nearly twenty years, the 
defenders of Slavery screened it from discussioa 
in the national councils. Now, they practically 
confess to the necessity for defending it here, by 
initiating discussion themselves. Tliey have at 
once thrown away their most successful weapon, 
compromise, and worn out that one which wag 
next in effectiveness, threats of secession from 
the Union. It is under such unpropitious cir- 



14 



eumstanccs that, they begin the new experiment 
of extendiug Slavery into free territory by force, 
the armed power of the Federal Government. 
Vou will need many votes from free States in the 
House of Rjepresentatives, and even some votes 
from those States in this House, to send an army 
with a retinue of slaves in its train into Kansas. 
Hare you counted up your votes in the two 
Houses ? Have you calculated how long those 
who shall cast such votes will retain their places 
in tlie National Legislature? 

But I will grant, for the sake of the argument, 
that with Federal battalions you can carry Sla- 
very into Kansas, and maintain it there. Are 
you quite confident tliat this republican form of 
government can then be upheld and preserved? 
You will then _vourselves have introduced the 
Trojan horse. No republican Government ever has 
endured, v/ith standing armies maintained in its 
bosom to enforce submission to its laws. A people 
who have once learned to relinquish their rights, 
under compulsion, will not be long in forgetting 
that they ever had any. In extending Slavery 
in* ) Kansas, therefore, by arms, you will subvert 
the liberties of the people. 

Senators of the free States, I appeal to you. 
15elieve ye the prophets ? I know you do. You 
know, then, that Slavery neither vrorks mines and 
quarries, nor founds cities, nor builds ships, nor 
levies armies, nor mans navies. Why, then, 
will you insist on closing up this new Territory 
of Kansas against all enriching streams of im- 
migration, while you pour into it the turbid and 
psisouous waters of African Slavery? Which 
oneof you all, whetherof Connecticut, or of Penn- 
j^ylvania, or of Illinois, or of Michigan, would con- 
pent thus to extinguish the chief light of civiliza- 
tion, within the State in which your own fortunes 
are cast, and in which your own posterity are to 
live? Why will j'ou pursue a policy so unkind, 
so ungenerous, and so unjust, towards the help- 
less, defenceless, struggling Territory of Kansas, 
inhabited as it is by your own brethren, depend- 
ing on you for protection and safety? Will Sla- 
very in Kansas add to the wealth or power of your 
own States, or to the wealth, power, or glory, of 
the Republic? You know that it will diminish all 
of these. You profess a desire to end this national 
debate about Slavery, which has become, for you, 
intolerable. Is it not time to relinquish that 
hope? You have exhausted the virtue, for that 
purpose, that resided in compacts and platforms, 
in the suppression of the right of petition and in 
arbitrary parliamentary laws, and in abnegation 
of Federal authority over the subject of Slavery 
within the National Territories. Will you even 
then end the debate, by binding Kansas with 
li.'hains, for the safety of Slavery in Jlissouri? 
Ivven then you must gi%-e over Utah to Slavery, 
to make it secure and permanent in Kansas : and 
you must give over Oregon and Washington to 
both Polygamy and Slavery, so as to guaranty 
cqunlly the one and the other of those peculiar 
domestic institutions in Utah ; and so you must 
gto on, sacrificing on the shrine of peace Territory 
aft-er Territory, until the prevailing nationality of 



freedom and of virtue shall be lost, and the 
vicious anomalies, which you have hitherto vain- 
ly hoped Almighty Wisdom would remove from 
among you without your own concurrence, shall 
become the controlling elements in.the Republie. 
He who found a river in his path, and sat down 
to wait for the flood to pass away, was not more 
unwise than he who expects the agitation of 
Slavery to cease, while the love of Freedom ani- 
mates the bosoms of mankind. 

The solemnity of the occasion draws over our 
heads that cloud of disunion, which always arises' 
whenever the subject of Slavery is agitated. Still, 
the debate goes on, more ardently, earnestly, and 
angrily, than ever before. It emjiloys now not 
merely logic, reproach, menace, retort, and defi- 
ance, but sabres, rifles, and cannon. Do you look 
through this incipient war quite to the end, and see 
there peace, quiet, and harmony, on the subject of 
Slavery? If so, pray enlighten me, and show me 
how long the way is which leads to that repoBe. 
The free States are loyal, and they always will 
remain so. Their foothold on this Continent is 
firm and sure. Their ability to maintain them- 
selves, unaided, under the present Constitution, 
is established. The slave States, also, have been 
loyal hitherto, and 1 hope and trust they ever 
may remain so. But if disunion could ever come, 
it would come in the form of a secession of the 
slaveholding States; and it would come, then, 
when the slaveholding power, which is already 
firmly established on the Gulf of Mexico, and ex- 
tends a thousand miles northward along both 
banks of the Mississippi, should have fastened its 
grappling irons upon the fountains of the Mis- 
souri and the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. 
Then that power would either be intolerably su- 
preme in this Republic, or it would strike for inde- 
pendence or exclusive domination. Then the free 
States and slave States of the Atlantic, divided 
and warring with each other, would disgust the 
free States of the Pacific, and they would have 
abundant cause and justification for withdraw- 
ing from a Union productive no longer of peace, 
safety, and liberty to themselves, and no longer 
holding up the cherished hopes of mankind. 

Mr. President, the Continental Congress of 
1V87, on resigning the trust, which it had dis- 
charged with signal fidelity, into the hands of 
the authorities elected under the new Constitu- 
tion, and in taking leave of their constituents, 
addressed to the people of the United States this 
memorable injunction : " Let it never be forgot- 
' ten, that the cause of the United States has 
' always been the cause of human nature." Let 
us recall that precious monition ; let us exam- 
ine the ways which we have pursued hitherto, 
under the light thrown upon them by that instruc- 
tion. We shall find, in doing so, that we have 
forgotten moral right, in the pursuit of material 
greatness, and we shall cease henceforth from 
practicing upon ourselves the miserable delusion, 
that we can safely extend Empire, when we shall 
have become reckless of the obligations of Eter- 
nal Justice, and faithless to the interests of UnL~ 
versal FreedoK. 



Mi. 



TO THE OPrOKENTS OF SLAVERT-EXTENSIOK. 



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Washington^ D, C 



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